The matter of the merchant guild was only the forerunner of more serious trouble. The townspeople were rapidly growing rich, whether by soap-making,[103] or the manufacture of woollen cloth, or the entertainment of travellers, or a happy combination of all three sources of wealth. Under Edward I. they were able to pave their city,[104] which had now risen to a sufficiently important position to be accounted a borough, and to return two members to the Parliament of 1295.[105] Its prosperity attracted the notice of Edward I., who in 1303 summoned two Coventry merchants to attend a council;[106] and of Edward II., who asked the inhabitants for a loan of 500 marks for the prosecution of the Scotch war. It is small wonder if the townsfolk were jealous lest this growing prosperity should be checked by the petty regulations the prior chose to lay on them. Was their wealth to be curtailed because, forsooth, the convent officials charged them, not to sell here, or make there, to relinquish a favourable bargain, or never to open stall or shop for sale of goods during certain hours of the day? The prior in the days of Edward II. was Henry Irreys, and his hand lay heavy on the townsmen. They were not able to live, they complained, "by reason of his oppression." Moreover, like the jolly, illiterate Abbot of S. Alban's named Hugh, who "feared nothing so much as the Latin tongue,"[107] and so oppressed his tenants, Prior Irreys was an ally of Edward II., for it was by "maintenance of the King and of Spencer, Earl of Winchester" (_i.e._ Despenser), that he was enabled to keep the malcontents in check. In his days arose a second dispute concerning traffic, but at what date we cannot tell. The Friday market had always been held in the Prior's-half, and there only were the Earl's-men permitted to sell their wares on that day.[108] Now certain of them broke through the prior's order, and sold openly in their own houses[109] during market hours. Appeal was made to the law. In vain the townsmen pleaded that by virtue of the clause in Ranulf's charter, giving them the same liberties as the Lincoln folk, they were free to sell their goods when or where they would. Vainly, too, they tried to strengthen their case by declaring that before the prior had purchased the Chester estate they had been wont to hold a fair in the Earl Street, where now their shops stood. These pleas availed nothing, and a verdict was returned for the prior with £60 damages, the Earl's men being forbidden to sell anywhere but in the Prior's-half during market hours. The prescribed payment must have well-nigh ruined William Grauntpee and other traders concerned in the struggle, for £60 was then accounted a great sum.[110]